Ok so I’ve been all-consumed with this idea that WE ARE NOT OUR CLOTHES! It started over a year ago when I was living and working in North Lawndale, a low-income neighborhood on the West Side of Chicago. I was on this angry kick of thinking about materialism and possessions and our society’s obsession with such. And I began to wonder why certain pieces of our clothing mean so much to many of us, and why it would be so devastating if those pieces were to be stolen or taken from us. It struck me how undoubtedly we place aspects of ourselves in our material possessions, though all they are are things, separate from our person and humanly-expressed being or soul. But yet, in our society, for most, these things make up a piece or more of who we are, somehow influencing, enhancing or even creating our own perceptions of ourselves and others. Though, yes, this may seem a common understanding and point of frustration for many circles and schools of thought, especially those more-liberal-less-conventional-anti-capitalism-folks, I do not think it is critically assessed in popular society nearly enough. Especially since popular culture seems most confined or subscribed to this societal construct without much thought….
Then I brought it back to my neighborhood, North Lawndale. With more than 75% of North Lawndale residents living below the national poverty line, I wondered how many of my neighbors actually have the resources to pick and choose their clothing and accessories in order to ‘create’ the persona or self-identity they so desire to portray? How many just wear whatever is passed down or given to them or affordable within their means and must fore-go the assumed right to ‘choice’ of style and self-expression the more affluent feel they deserve? If so, what does this mean for THEIR personal identity and self-expression? How do they view fashion as a function in their everyday world? These questions really got my head spinning….
More than a year later, I can’t stop thinking about this. I know, as a young female living in one of the largest metropolitan cities in the US, fashion is something you need to pay attention to. Or at least I have been conditioned to believe that. But what is fashion? Where did it come from? Technically one could subscribe to Genesis as the biography for humankind’s first fashion designers, Adam and Eve, who began the idea of ‘clothing’ through the means of fig leaves in order to cover themselves. So if that was the beginning, how did clothing evolve from simple material used to cover our privates into this consuming always-changing-thus-material-wasting-money-making-status-marking-self-expression-machine? In the beginning, clothing and fashion was at the mercy of the needs of humankind. Now, for the majority, it appears that humankind is at the mercy of fashion. At least if they care at all about status, appearance, making a good impression and keeping up with culture.
So I have decided to act on these long-burning curiosities and try to research this in a multi-faceted way. As a social experiment, I want to produce a documentary (of which I have no experience doing nor knowledge on how to do it) that will assess several aspects of this over-arching theme of We Are Not Our Clothes! I envision 3 main segments: the social experiment, a variety of interviews from folks from all different backgrounds and a brief historical analysis of the evolution of clothing/fashion and it’s function in society.
Just to even begin thinking about putting flesh onto this idea is absolutely terrifying. I am one of those people who has a lot of ideas but will only complete about 0.5% of them because of my desire to do things perfectly (or fear of failure) which leads to my lack of follow-through. So here is my official commitment to this project. I am now seeking a creative team to help keep me to this commitment and brainstorm life into this idea….anyone interested, please let me know! A videographer is highly anticipated!
More details on this specific vision for this documentary/social experiment will follow soon.
